Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/225

Rh of fact, the difference lies more in his way of stating his theory than in his practice. So far as his observation of life led him to believe that people of the type of Pamela and Clarissa act in general as these heroines do, and that their fortunes in general are determined by their character and their society in the manner he represents, so far he is merely using them properly as illustrations of the view of life of which experience has convinced him. So far, however, as he modifies their characters or careers to conform not to the way the world is, but to the way he wants people to believe the world is, he is artistically false, his picture fails in truth, and the modern reader declines to be interested or convinced. The whole question turns on which the author puts first, artistic truth or effect. If he is more concerned with specific effects than with truth, his "novel with a purpose" will deserve the contempt with which the phrase is usually employed. If his main concern is with truth, his "purpose," being merely a special illustration of the truth with whatever practical result in mind, will do no harm, but may add greatly to the zest with which he paints his picture.

THE VALUE OF FICTION

Assuming the correctness of the view that the novelist's business is to give true pictures of life, we are met by the question of the value of this result. The answer to this is twofold: there is an intellectual value and an emotional value.

The amount and range of experience that comes to the ordinary man is of necessity limited. Most of us are tied to a particular locality, move in a society representing only a few of the myriad human types that exist, spend the majority of our waking hours attending to a more or less monotonous series of duties or enjoying a small variety of recreations. In such a life there is often no great range of opportunity; and the most adventurous career touches, after all, but a few points in the infinite complex of existence. But we have our imaginations, and it is to these that the artist appeals. The discriminating reader of fiction can enormously enlarge his experience of life through his acquaintance with the new tracts brought within his vision by the novelist, at second hand, it is true, but the vivid writer can often bring before our mental eyes scenes and persons